Machinery and robotics entering China require Chinese-language operating and safety documentation, with safety terminology tied to the wording of the governing standards. The general anchor is Article 27 of the Product Quality Law, which requires Chinese product identification and Chinese warning instructions for products that can endanger persons or property if used improperly.
This page is compiled from public official sources and has not yet been checked line by line against the Chinese originals by a reviewer with Chinese regulatory reading capability. Every claim carries a source and a retrieval date so you can verify it yourself; confirm before relying on it for a filing or an external commitment.
Each row states what was established, the provision it rests on, and when it was retrieved. Rows marked to verify are ones this research could not settle against an official provision — they are shown rather than omitted.
| Document | Chinese required | Detail | Basis | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Warning instructions on the machine and in the manual | Required | Article 27, item (5) requires products that may damage themselves or endanger persons or property if used improperly to carry warning marks or Chinese warning instructions. Industrial robots sit squarely inside that description, which makes the Chinese warning text a compliance artefact rather than a convenience for the operator. | Product Quality Law of the People’s Republic of China (as amended 29 December 2018), Article 27, item (5) | www.cnipa.gov.cn2026-09-04verifiable |
| Product identification on the machine or packaging | Required | Article 27, items (2) and (3) require the product name and the manufacturer name and address to be marked in Chinese, and require specifications, grade and principal constituent names and contents to be marked in Chinese where the product characteristics and conditions of use call for it. Where the buyer needs to know before purchase, the information must be on the outer packaging or supplied in advance. | Product Quality Law (as amended 2018), Article 27, items (2) and (3) | www.cnipa.gov.cn2026-09-04verifiable |
| Safety terminology in operating documentation | Required | GB 11291.2-2013, the Chinese standard covering safety requirements for industrial robots at the level of robot systems and integration, is recorded as in force with an implementation date of 1 November 2014. Where a standard governs safety concepts, the Chinese wording attached to those concepts is not free for a translator to choose: it is inherited from the standard, and drifting from it makes the manual and the standard describe different things. The standard text itself was not read; its number, title, status and implementation date were verified from the national standards platform. | GB 11291.2-2013, Robots and robotic devices — Safety requirements for industrial robots — Part 2: Robot systems and integration | openstd.samr.gov.cn2026-09-04verifiable |
| Interface and on-screen text | Not required | No provision was located that specifically mandates Chinese for robot interface strings. The recurring problem here is not a language mandate but a mismatch: the manual describes a control by one name and the screen shows another, so an operator following the manual cannot find the control. Interface strings are also where identifiers matched in code get translated by mistake. Recorded as a negative finding: absence of a located provision is not proof that none exists. | No specific provision located | www.samr.gov.cn2026-09-04portal only |
Safety wording in this sector is inherited, not authored. Where a national standard defines a safety concept, the Chinese term attached to it comes from the standard, and the operating manual, the machine markings and the training material all have to use the same one. GB 11291.2-2013 remains in force for robot systems and integration, so its vocabulary is still the reference point for that layer.
The check that matters is not whether the Chinese reads well but whether the same safety concept carries the same term in the manual, on the machine, on the screen and in the training material. A manual that is internally consistent but diverges from the machine markings still leaves the operator with two vocabularies.
Article 27, item (5) requires warning marks or Chinese warning instructions for products that may endanger persons or property if used improperly. The provision is written around the hazard, not around the sophistication of the buyer.
www.cnipa.gov.cnWhere the term comes from a governing standard, a clearer rendering is still a different term from the one the standard uses. That divergence is what makes a manual and a standard describe different things.
openstd.samr.gov.cnThey can be, and that is usually how the mismatch arises. Nothing in the requirements forbids it; the cost lands on the operator who reads a control name in the manual that does not appear on the screen.
www.samr.gov.cnNo public case naming a document or language problem as the stated cause was found for this sector. What follows is the regulatory position, recorded without predicting outcomes.
Chinese product name, manufacturer name and address are required on the product or its packaging, and Chinese warning instructions are required where improper use may endanger persons or property. No public case was located tying an enforcement action to robot documentation language.
www.cnipa.gov.cnGB 11291.2-2013 is recorded as in force for robot systems and integration. Whether divergence from its terminology has been raised in an inspection was not established from public sources.
openstd.samr.gov.cnThe provision we can point to directly is Article 27, item (5) of the Product Quality Law, which requires warning marks or Chinese warning instructions where improper use may endanger persons or property. Whether every part of a manual falls inside that wording is a question we would not answer with more confidence than the text supports.
Product name and manufacturer name and address, under item (2). Specifications, grade and principal constituents follow under item (3) where the product characteristics and conditions of use require them.
GB 11291.2-2013 covers safety requirements for industrial robots at the robot system and integration level and is recorded as in force, implemented 1 November 2014.
We did not locate one, and we record that as a negative finding rather than as a conclusion that none exists. The failure we see in practice is mismatch between screen and manual rather than absence of Chinese.
Check what standard it was written against before reusing it. Terminology inherited from a superseded standard reads correctly and cites a reference that no longer governs, which is the harder failure to notice.
No. We can set out what the cited provisions and standards require, and where your material does not correspond to them, with a source for each point. Certification and legal determinations belong to the competent authority and to qualified professionals in China.
The following could not be established against an official source in this round, and so was not written into the findings above. It is listed so you can see where the research stops.
Regulatory research is a separate service line. It is not a tier of the L1–L4 translation service levels.
This page presents regulatory research intended to help companies understand documentation requirements in a target market. It does not constitute legal advice and is not a substitute for qualified legal counsel.
All regulation numbers, effective dates, and status indicators on this page carry a source and a retrieval date. Regulations may change after that date. For determinations of legal effect, the official-language text and the current rules of the competent authority govern.
Before this material is used for filing, certification, or any external commitment, we recommend review by a licensed attorney in the target market.
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